Although person perception researchers have long concerned with the manner in which perceivers deal with inconsistent personality information, virtually no research has attempted to directly answer the question, "Do actions speak louder than words?". The research proposed here will address this question in its more sophisticated forms: When they are placed in direct contradiction, does it happen that a stimulus person's self-description or that person's spontaneous behavior is consistently more important in determining perceivers' impressions? Under what conditions will self-description or behavior be more important in determining impressions? Will a primary effect or a recency effect consistently be obtained? What are the limits if these phenomena? Both Study 1 and Study 2 will present perceivers with two videotapes focusing on the same main character. One videotape will show the stimulus person reading a self-description, and the other will show the stimulus person engaging in a conversation. In Study l, half the subjects will receive two consistent pieces of information, and half will receive two inconsistent pieces. The order of presentation of the self-description and the conversation will be counterbalance. In Study 2, all subjects will receive inconsistent information. The degree of inconsistency will be manipulated by varying the extremity of the behavior exhibited during the conservation, and the strength of the self-descriptive statement. Dependent measures in both studies will include personality ratings and attributions for the behavior. These experiments represent a new and useful paradigm for studying the manner in which perceivers deal with inconsistent personality information. Results will lead to a greater understanding of social information processing, and they will bear theoretical relevance for research on person perception, impression formation, and attribution.